Friday, September 01, 2006
What Bob said
Journalist Robert Parry wrote:
In a world that wasn't upside-down, the editorial page of Washington's biggest newspaper might praise a whistleblower like former Ambassador Joseph Wilson for alerting the American people to a government deception that helped lead the country into a disastrous war that has killed 2,627 U.S. soldiers.
The editorial page also might demand that every senior administration officials who sought to protect that deception by leaking the identity of a covert CIA officer (Wilson's wife) be held accountable, at minimum stripped of their security clearances and fired from government.
But the United States, circa 2006, is an upside-down world. So the Washington Post's editorial page instead makes excuses for the government deceivers, treats their exposure of the CIA officer as justifiable - and attacks the whistleblower by recycling the government's false spin points against him.
If future historians wonder how the United States could have blundered so catastrophically into Iraq under false pretenses and why so few establishment figures dared to speak out, the historians might read the sorry pattern of the Post's editorial-page attacks on those who did dissent.
Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, who fell for virtually every Iraq War deception that the Bush administration could dream up, is back assaulting former Ambassador Wilson, again, in a Sept. 1 editorial, falsely accusing Wilson of lying...
I honestly don't care what character flaws Joe Wilson may have. I'm sure they are many.
He was one of the few people in official Washington willing to say that Bush misled the nation into Iraq.
By contrast, the people who exposed Valerie Plame may be wonderful human beings, kind to children and dogs, and generous to the poor.
They're also, take your pick: (a) criminals, (b) dangerously incompetent, or (c) both.
Richard Armitage is one of Washington's official "good guys."
I would call him Mr. Limited Hangout. He says the outer limit of what the Administration is willing to admit. It contrasts so sharply with the total mendacity of the rest of Bushco that it sounds refreshing, very truthy.
But if Armitage were an honest man, he would have quit in disgust.
So, he's there to do a job, and that job is to minimize damage by providing the limited hangout.
I would not be surprised if George Bush had not personally ordered him to leak Plame's CIA status to Novak.
I would not be surprised if the Washington Post knew the extent of the crime and was covering for the criminals.
What Bob said:
Only in this upside-down world would a major newspaper be so irresponsible and so dishonest as to lay off the blame for exposing a CIA officer on her husband because he dared criticize lies told by the President of the United States, deceptions that have led the nation into a military debacle.
And, we might add, only in an upside-down world would a lump of human offal like Fred Hiatt be running a major newspaper, while a good man like Robert Parry has to beg for nickels from blog readers.
Speaking of which, when was the last time you supported Consortium News?
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